Gardening ExpressReviews 594

Outgrown their ability to serve their customers.
Gardening Express started off well, I used to love them, but after bombarding you with emails with good special offers, the ability to deliver plants within a time frame or deal with queries is now woefully inadequate.
Gardening Express promises much but delivers little.
I had a real problem with my last order in particular, only after several emails over several weeks did I get a totally unhelpful and fruitless reply.
DO NOT ACCEPT THE TRUSTPILOT 5 STAR RATINGS. I have no idea where the reviews are coming from but I doubt they are recently genuinely satisfied customers.
The reviews here reflect what I suspect are the majority of customer experiences.

Arrived poorly packed in black plastic and when open no soil attached to the roots.
Looked dead but planted straightaway and after six weeks no life. Emailed customer service and sent photos but they are not responding. This company should be investigated by Trading Standards and shut down, they are rogues.

Received the plants I ordered eventually and they were nothing like the photos and descriptions on their website. They blatantly lie on their website and send you something that's barely alive. There is no way to contact them by telephone and emails are not responded to so there's no way to get a refund. Total cowboy operation that needs to be investigated by Trading Standards.

I decided to buy plants online for the first time as i needed various plants for my new garden and couldn't carry them with my own car if i have purchased them from a garden centre.

That was a big mistake and here is why:

After browsing for couple of hours and spending over £300 on various plants such as roses, jasmines, macrophylla, etc. I couldn't wait to see them in my garden. But my dream was all shattered when i saw them delivered. Some of the Roses were tiny and had dried stems, Mopheads were completely dry and overall the quality of plants were awful. And to make things worst packaging was so bad that broke some of the plants.

Worst part of this experience was that customer service, they don't have any phone lines so all you can do is to send an email but despite various attempts they never got back to me.

I wasted my time and money with them so AVOID THEM AT ANY COST!

Please do not order from this website. These guys are a scam. They do not post the plant. My plant is lost in the transit and these guys wouldn't respond. There is no telephone number and they plainly ignore all the emails. I'm gutted I didn't check the reviews. I'm going to post this review on every single feedback website.

I ordered a small tree, a perennial and some corms. The tree arrived first and was completely dried out with the roots wrapped in a plastic bag with no soil. It still looks dead 3 weeks later and although I have completed the contact form, I have not received any response what so ever. The perennial was in a pot but half the stems were dead and the few leaves were yellow and very small. My main concern is having no response from my complaint. I will not use this company again and would advise that you don't either.

You certainly don't receive anything remotely similar to the pictures on their website. Trust me, the cheap price 100% reflects what you'll receive - rubbish.

Approach this outfit with the upmost caution. I eventually received a box of dead plants. My bank was so concerned that they have put a stop on my card and I now await the replacement. They just ignore you and their guarantee is worthless. I shall be contacting trading standards.

We are a private members club, we have had people come to us in error, this is not garden express! We are the Estuary club limited. Please avoid this company if you want to avoid being disappointed.

Absolutely shocking, product and service! Avoid at all cost. I would rather have given my £50 to a charity had I known what I would be delivered. Contacted humpteen times to complain and never got back to me, the email they say to use does not work. There is never anyone on line to deal with chat. I have several screenshots of my communication to them and not once have they replied to try and resolve. I ordered what should have been a beautiful shrub, I know it has to flourish but I genuinely got twigs. Please go to a reputable garden centre unless you want to waste your money, be aware the after sales is non existent and product I got absolutely sub-standard for what I paid. I am so upset that I am raising a complaint through Resolver. They simply do not care about their customers. Also, the delivery took weeks, I chased and chased and could not get any response.

Sold me two pathetic acers,which looked nothing like their pictures,paid nearly £90 for them,one has now died,so I thought they would replace as they state a 5 year warranty,they haven't replied to me and have now indeed blocked me,basically they are thieves,please avoid folks *******
I think this is their contact Phone: zero eight four four eight zero four four two five three
08*******8448
Location:
Gardening Express, Chelmsford
Essex
CM1 4UA

Plants I've ordered have died. In fact they never grew in the first place. That's not my issue as there is a guarantee. The problem with this company is communication. I've been following their recommend 'contact us' procedure and have not had a single response in 14 days. I'd advise avoiding this company until they sort out their customer support.

Promised to dispatch with 5 working days. Took 13 working days and several messages before they dispatched. Once my plants arrived I carefully opened the battered box to find they were taped together tightly with no other protection. The fern I ordered had no leaves and was pretty much DOA. Bedding plants were on their last legs. They were battered and droopy. I planted and watered immediately. Over a week later and they've all pretty much died. Can't say much about the bulbs I received. I'll have to wait and see. All in all a bad experience and an absolute pain to try and contact anyone about my issues. I'll be avoiding this company from now on.

Ordered 6 dormant bare root fruit trees in November as they were supposed to be guaranteed to grow. Planted as instructed. By April 5 had leaves on but one is completely dead. I asked them to replace the dead one on accordance with their Bare Root Guarantee.
It turns out the Guarantee only applies to products with the code BR in front of the order number. Unfortunately my trees have the DEAL even though they were bare root fruit trees. Clever underhand tactic by these rogues.

Obtaining plants from Gardening Express is like interfacing with a nonempathetic robot. I ordered online and status didn't change to 'Processing' until I complained after no change after 10 days. I had to complain via their dub chatbot and no phone number is offered by the internet only policy. Finally received my four roses which were OK. Customer service was non-existent and apology was never forgiven. The service is certainly not an express one. Its a garden service operated by a nerd.

I ordered and received 3 Sunningdale Silver Pampas Grass - Cortaderia selloana Large Specimen Plant. All 3 rotted in the ground. Every care was taken with them, they just rotted. I suspect they were dead when delivered, not dormant like they were sold as. No refund or replacement offered. 5 year guarantee only applies to a few select (if any) plants and you have to keep the label and return them as they came, who is going to keep the packaging and return a mush of rotted plant, especially after 5 years! What a joke. So you have to determine if your "dormant" plant is still alive within 14 days of delivery else your are out luck returning anything.

Ordered 2 standard shrubs sent normal shrubs. After some contact then refused to answer emails. No other way to contact them

Plant died before being planted out, supposed customer service department refused to acknowledge responsibility. Guarantee not worth the paper it's written on

Awful customer service...through a chatline!...replacement plants only accepted in a 2 week window...ridiculous especially since I bought my plants in January when they were dormant!
I would not use this company again!
Ordered two identical very expensive plants, total £86.97. One failed and Gardening Express refused to offer me a replacement nor credit.